Every game designer has faced the situation: a 200-page document detailing every NPC and every item—yet the team still doesn't know where to start. Such a document becomes an encyclopedia, not a tool for starting development. The real need of a team is a high-level GDD of 20–40 pages that clearly captures the game's uniqueness, the gameplay loop, necessary systems, and the reasons for players to return.
A GDD is a living document that sets the direction. The team should read it and understand what to do. If questions like "how exactly does X work" remain, that's normal for a high-level document. If questions like "why are we even doing X" remain, the document has failed its purpose. That's why we embed not just mechanic descriptions but also the rationale behind each decision in our GDDs. This approach has proven effective on dozens of projects—from hyper-casual to complex RPGs with MMO elements.
According to the Game Developers Conference, 70% of projects face rework due to unclear design documents. A well-crafted GDD reduces rework costs by up to 50%—our practice confirms this.
Structure of a High-Level GDD
Core Gameplay Loop. One or two paragraphs and a diagram. What the player does every 30 seconds, every 5 minutes, every 30 minutes. For a mobile rogue-like: kill monsters (30 sec) → collect upgrades (5 min) → finish the run, unlock permanent improvements (30 min). Clear to programmer, artist, and producer alike.
Player Progression. How the player becomes stronger/more experienced. What unlocks and when. Retention mechanics (daily rewards, streak, progression gates). For F2P—monetization model at the concept level: what we sell, how it doesn't break balance.
Game Systems Overview. A list of systems with a one-line description of their purpose. Combat System, Inventory, Crafting, Quest/Mission, Save/Load, Economy, UI/HUD. This becomes the future backlog for development—each system will become an epic in Jira.
Technical Constraints and Platform Context. A high-level GDD is written with the engine in mind. If we're on Unity Mobile—no ray tracing, limited particle budget, need offline mode. These constraints affect design: you can't design a system with real-time global illumination for a mobile project.
References. Not just "similar to Minecraft." But "crafting system like in Valheim (recipe-based, resource nodes in an open world), but without grid-based building—free placement like in Rust." Specific mechanics from specific games are a language the whole team understands.
Why a GDD Saves Budget
A good GDD is insurance against costly rework. When the team understands why each system exists, programmers don't waste time on unnecessary abstractions, and artists don't create assets that will be cut. We've seen in practice: reworking a mechanic at a late stage costs 5–10 times more than adjusting it at the document stage. That's why reviewing the GDD with a tech lead is a mandatory step.
How Often Should the GDD Be Updated?
The GDD should not become a static artifact. We recommend a revision at each major milestone: after the prototype, after the first playtest, after alpha closure. If the direction changes, update immediately. A document is only useful if people trust it.
Common Mistakes in GDDs
First—the document describes a "dream" rather than the first version product. 50 character classes, 300 items, procedural world—all in the MVP. A high-level GDD should separate V1 (what's in the release), Post-launch (what's planned in updates), and Vision (where we want to go in 2+ years). Otherwise, the team doesn't know what to do now.
Second—no rationale for mechanics. It says "the game has a skill tree," but not why. Why not a simple character level? What does the tree give the player that a level counter doesn't? The GDD must answer "why"—otherwise, the programmer will implement the system "technically" without understanding its gameplay purpose.
Third—the GDD is not updated. Written at the start, forgotten after a month. The result: the document describes a game that has long since changed, and no one trusts it. We establish a process of GDD revision in parallel with development.
How We Create a GDD: Step-by-Step Process
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Interviews and Requirements Gathering. 2–4 hours with the game designer or client. Structured questions about genre, target audience, monetization, competitive landscape, technical constraints. We record the answers.
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Competitive Analysis. Choose 3–5 similar games, analyze their loop, progression, retention mechanics. Not for copying, but to understand genre patterns and points of differentiation.
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Structure Alignment. Write the GDD table of contents and align with the client before writing the text. This saves rework time: better to redo a table of contents than a finished section.
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Document Writing. Following the agreed structure, prepare the full text with core loop, progression, system overview, technical constraints, and references.
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Tech Lead Review. Check the feasibility of mechanics within the chosen tech stack and budget. Adjust if necessary.
Example of a Successful GDD: Mobile RPG
For a mobile RPG project, we developed a GDD that focused on the core loop and progression. The team started prototyping 2 weeks after document approval. Thanks to a clear separation of V1 and Vision, rework did not exceed 10% of the planned scope.
| Task Scale |
Estimated Timeline |
| GDD for hyper-casual / prototype |
3–5 days |
| GDD for mid-core game (10–15 systems) |
1–2 weeks |
| GDD for complex project (RPG, strategy, MMO) |
3–4 weeks |
| Revision of existing GDD + gap analysis |
3–5 days |
| Document Type |
Purpose |
Volume |
| High-Level GDD |
Overall direction, concept |
20–40 pages |
| Detailed GDD |
Mechanic and balance specification |
100+ pages |
| TDD (Technical Design Document) |
Technical implementation of systems |
50–100 pages |
| Art Bible |
Visual style, references |
30–80 pages |
Over 7 years of experience in game design and development. We have delivered 15+ projects across various genres. Contact us to get a consultation on your GDD structure. Order the development of a high-level GDD for your project—pricing is determined after reviewing the concept and requirements.
How to plan a game project?
Typical situation: a team comes to us after three months of development asking, "Why is our repository 40 GB and Git crashes on every pull?" The answer is almost always the same: PNG textures and FBX files committed directly without Git LFS, causing the repository history to bloat to an unworkable state. This is solvable, but rewriting history in a live project is a painful process that could have been easily avoided.
Game planning is not about Gantt charts. It's about technical decisions in the first two weeks that won't become problems three months later. With over 7 years of experience shipping 50+ titles across mobile, PC, and console, our team has seen these pitfalls firsthand.
Why game planning is not about Gantt?
Work schedule is just the tip of the iceberg. Real game project planning includes:
- Strict definition of target platforms and minimum requirements (e.g., iPhone 11, 60 fps)
- Decomposition of mechanics into numerical parameters with versioning
- Selection of the tech stack that determines the entire architecture (render pipeline, network, ECS)
- Infrastructure setup before the first asset commit
Without this, a "plan" is just a list of tasks with no foundation. A month later, you discover that the Unreal project can't be built for mobile platforms, or that ECS was overkill for a simple runner. Time wasted, budget spent on prototypes that need to be rewritten. Proper planning reduces these risks by a factor of 3–5x.
Documentation: GDD as a living tool
A poorly executed GDD (Game Design Document) is an 80-page PDF that nobody reads after the second sprint. A well-executed GDD is a structured knowledge base that the team actually uses every day.
What should be in the GDD?
Minimum set without which development cannot begin:
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Gameplay systems — precise description of each mechanic with parameters. Not "character jumps," but "jump: height 2.4 units, air time 0.6 sec, 150 ms coyote time, double jump allowed, landing blocks attack for 200 ms." Numbers may change during balancing, but they must be recorded and versioned.
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Technical constraints — target platforms, minimum hardware requirements, memory and draw call limits. If the game must run on iPhone 11 at 60 fps, this constraint affects all art decisions from the start.
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Scope and features — explicit list of what's in MVP and what's deferred. "Maybe we'll add crafting" is not planning; it's a source of feature creep.
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References — specific games with specific mechanics taken as a basis. "Like Dark Souls but faster" is a working reference for a combat designer.
How we manage GDD
We use Notion or Confluence — the GDD lives as a wiki, not a file. Changes are visible in history, comments can be left, mechanics are cross-referenced. Technical design and artistic design are stored in separate sections but linked. Each mechanic has a status: in development, ready, under review, frozen. This allows you to understand the real state of the project at any moment without phone calls.
What technical architecture decisions are critical for game planning?
Tech stack selection is not a religion
We discuss the choice between Unity and Unreal in detail in the general catalog section. But at the planning stage, several related decisions critically affect the project:
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Render pipeline in Unity. URP — for mobile and VR. HDRP — for PC/consoles. Built-in (Legacy) — only if taking over an old project. Changing pipeline mid-development means rebuilding all materials. Decision is made on the first commit day.
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Game object architecture. Classic MonoBehaviour vs ECS (Entity Component System via Unity DOTS). ECS provides performance gains on thousands of objects but dramatically increases code complexity. Overkill for hyper-casual games, necessary for strategies.
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Network architecture. If multiplayer is planned, decision is made before the first game mechanic. Single-player and networked code are fundamentally different: in a networked game, every state change must be explicit and synchronizable.
ScriptableObjects as configuration layer
In Unity, we use a ScriptableObject-oriented approach to store game data. Weapon configurations, enemy parameters, level settings — all are ScriptableObject assets, not hardcoded values. This allows game designers to tweak balance without programmer involvement and without rebuilding the project.
How to manage version control and assets?
This is the area where most small teams waste time in the most frustrating way. Our engineers have seen teams lose 2–3 weeks migrating to Git LFS mid-project — time that could have been saved with a single .gitattributes file.
Git + Git LFS
Standard Git is not designed for binary files. A 4K texture in PNG weighs 20–50 MB. Committing it as a regular file bloats the repository history catastrophically fast. Git LFS stores binary files separately, placing only pointers in Git history. It is configured once in .gitattributes:
*.png filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.fbx filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.psd filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.unitypackage filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.mp3 filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.wav filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
This should be set up before the first asset commit. Afterwards, a painful migration can cost significant developer time. Git LFS reduces clone time by 10x compared to standard Git for large repositories.
Perforce
An alternative for large Unreal projects. Epic Games themselves use Perforce. It handles very large repositories (hundreds of GB) better, with native support in Unreal Editor. Higher infrastructure cost and setup complexity.
| Characteristic |
Git + LFS |
Perforce |
| Repository size |
up to 50 GB effectively |
hundreds of GB |
| Native Unreal support |
no |
yes |
| Setup complexity |
low |
medium/high |
| Infrastructure cost |
low |
medium/high |
Branching
For game projects, we use a simplified Git Flow: main, develop, feature/*, release/*. Rule: never commit anything to main that hasn't passed QA. Violating this turns "last stable version" into a meaningless term.
CI/CD for game projects
Automated builds on every push solve the "it works on my machine" problem. Pipeline includes:
- Unity license activation (headless)
- Run tests (Unity Test Runner)
- Build for Android (APK/AAB)
- Build for iOS (Xcode project)
- Build for PC (Standalone)
- Upload artifacts to S3 or Firebase App Distribution
Build time: 15–40 minutes. The team gets fresh builds without manual work. Automated CI/CD reduces integration bugs by 50–70% according to internal metrics.
GameCI — GitHub Actions for Unity. Unity Cloud Build — hosting from Unity, easier setup, more expensive with many builds. Jenkins — full control, used for console platforms.
Sample project start checklist:
- [ ] Target platforms and minimum requirements defined
- [ ] Render pipeline and object architecture selected
- [ ] Git LFS configured with
.gitattributes before first commit
- [ ] GDD created in wiki with status separation
- [ ] CI/CD configured (at least GameCI)
- [ ] MVP scope defined
Deliverables and scope of work
- Documentation: technical specifications, GDD (MVP scope), architectural diagram, data models.
- Repository setup: Git + LFS, branching rules, project template, code conventions.
- CI/CD: build configuration for all target platforms, automated testing.
- Access: to repository, CI/CD, bug tracker; team training on tool usage.
- Support: first month of development assistance — answering questions, adjusting settings, reviewing architectural decisions.
Timeframes for planning
| Stage |
Duration |
Result |
| Technical brief |
1–3 days |
List of platforms, technical constraints, preliminary tech stack |
| GDD v1 (MVP scope) |
1–2 weeks |
Description of all MVP mechanics, technical requirements |
| Technical design |
1 week |
System architecture, DB schema, network model |
| Infrastructure setup |
2–3 days |
Git + LFS, CI/CD, project template, code style |
| Prototype of key mechanic |
1–2 weeks |
Playable core loop prototype |
Total before full production: 4–6 weeks. This is not bureaucracy — it's insurance against rewriting, saving up to 40% of production time (equivalent to $15k–$30k in rework for a typical team).
How does game planning prevent technical debt?
A planning mistake in the first sprint costs 10 times more to fix than in the prototype phase. Wrong tech stack choice or lack of LFS leads to architecture rebuilds, lost commits, and team demotivation. Proper game planning is an investment that pays off with 30% fewer bugs and an average of 2 months faster release. Our certified Unity engineers guarantee that your foundation is solid — we've seen what breaks, and we know how to avoid it.
Evaluate your project — contact us for a consultation and a detailed first-steps plan. Order game planning services and avoid the typical pitfalls we see in 90% of inquiries. Get in touch to start planning your game today.
